The Lost Woman, Patricia Beer

The “lost woman” is not lost. Her daughter is.

Patricia starts the poem on a very personal note talking about “my” mother. It startles the reader to know that the mother “went with no more warning”, the reader is scared to know that the death of the mother was sudden. Enjambment used to highlight the contrast and tension at death of a person with a “bright voice”.

The reader imagines a usual happy day for the girl returning from school when reading “school” and “brook goes under a lane”. The next line highlights brevity of life with “shocking white” as if messenger of death has come to take the mother away in the “ambulance”.

The poetess uses enjambment again to bring out break in the relationship in the beginning of the second stanza. The reader is shocked with the daughter that the mother did not come back from the hospital and the daughter did not even attend the funeral. The words “a romance began” take the reader into the world of fantasy, the imagination of the daughter into another realm. It clearly charts out a sojourn into the extraordinary. The author uses the word “ivy” to show that her mother was clingy, dependent, insecure person. “Turn” has been used by Patricia to show a change, a transition, from reality to fantasy. “into a tree” shows the mother’s transition into a solid, confident and dependent person. Patricia has created a muse here words like “began” and “turned into”. The muse clearly exists till date “still” and is illusory hence is a “rainbow”. The words “I approach” show that the poet is now seeking the strength of the mother. It is the daughter now who is dependent, for she is the one that “clutch”es.

                                                                                                                                

The words “I made” show that the poetess has created an imaginative life for the mother. “Frustrated no more”… in her imagination the daughter has created an exciting life for the mother, she is a hero for she runs a “canteen”. She romanticizes the mother’s existence here, makes her a hero. She mother does not have a “frustrated” marriage any more. In her attempt to remove the “dull” part the daughter in her own way gives the mother “wit”, a “summer school”. The mother’s life “over the years” was rewritten by the daughter with “made.

Every artist has a muse, an inspiration to spark the creative piece of work. In this case for Patricia it is her mother. She has “acquired” a woman to “haunt the home”. The muse is something to yearn for and “desired”. It seems like she is hiding a “corpse” a person or secret so that no one gets to “know”. The poet wants to keep a secret, something that will not “grow”, no one will get to know about it.

The poetess feels that her muse, her “mother” is “nearly always benign” leaving a hint that there are times she is not so benevolent, kind. The author creates an image of a person who does not scare you in the “dead” of the night yet dawns on you during the “soft” light. The mother does not “chide”. The poet is talking about a perfect muse here. A person who has been long forgotten yet remains soft and comes to almost protect you being “soft”. The dead mother is being idolized since she does not scare but is “soft”. Perhaps the daughter wanted a soft and a not a hard mother in her growing up years that is why the muse is “rabbit-light”

Patricia prepares the reader for a transition with “But”. Her “lost woman” is unlike the perfect use who does not scare people. Her “lost woman” is someone who “snaps”. The last stanza brings out the angst of the mother against the daughter. The daughter for whom she “sacrificed” for the mother wanted the daughter to go beyond the mother and “rise”. The reader can imagine that the daughter took the opportunity to “rise”. The vision created is that of a soul which has emanated from a body and become a “ghost”.

The mother thus accused the daughter of being “lost” of being a “ghost”.